It’s early Sunday morning and I’ve had a shocking nights sleep. I tossed and turned all night not quite believing what we had done to ourselves.
Firstly we voted to retain MMP and then saw results that proved what an appalling system it is. Too late now folks! Frankly we should have had the results of last nights election debacle and then have asked the question – do you want to retain MMP or not. I am sure the result of the referendum would have been quite different than last nights one.
If ever there was a clear demonstration that MMP is an absurd system it was last night. Apart from the rag tag bunch of one man parties, how the hell can we justify Winston Peters returning to parliament – and worse, he drags 7 of his lightweight mates in with him.
Winston Peters is arguably the most untrustworthy politician ever to sit in our house of representatives. In the first MMP election he campaigned on getting rid of National. He encouraged us to vote for him so he could get rid of the terrible National Government. When it became obvious that this ridiculous system had delivered him the balance of power, Peters, after holding the country to ransom for weeks, did a deal with National which kept them in power. National even created the new role of Treasurer for him which suited Peters perfectly. It was just a posers role and Bill Birch did all the work as Minister of Finance. Eventually National saw through him and Peters was sacked.
Peters subsequently campaigned saying he was “not interested in the baubles of office”. This time he went with Labour who gave him a first class air ticket and told him to stay out of the country as much as possible. They too eventually saw through him and gave him the shove.
Winston Peters could not be trusted then and he can not be trusted now. He is the poster boy for all that is wrong with the MMP system.
Look at the graphic of the House of Representatives in this mornings paper. Does it occur to anyone else that one side of the house looks solid and the other side a shambles? All these little parties with one MP are just nonsense. And like Jim Anderton did for years, they will all be putting their hands out for the party leaders funding which is significant. Leaders of what? In the good old days these people would have been leaders of ginger groups within the main parties.
Being an optimist I need to look for something positive that came out of last night. And it’s easy to find isn’t it. At least Hone didn’t get John Minto and Sue Bradford into Parliament!
So that’s got that off my chest – I can now go and enjoy a magnificent day in the Bay. At one stage last night I was seriously considering moving to Australia – I kid you not!
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November 28th, 2011 at 7:02 am
Bill, I agree totally with your comments about MMP. National’s polling was most impressive and I think only the fourth time for at least 120 years that a government had increased its poll percentage – the others being 1938, snap election of 1951 and 1987. Yet Key still has to cobble up a coalition with parties that polled a tiny %age of votes.
But there is another weakness of MMP and it is the presumption of a list MP being a constituency MP without any mandate whatsoever. This is the first of the five MMP terms when this has not been the case in HB. We have had Tolley, Fairbrother and Nash as de facto Napier MPs, Barker for Hastings and Kirton as the “independent MP for Hawkes Bay”. If this is democracy then I don’t understand the term
List MPs only mandate – and accountability – is to their party, which put them into Parliament. I believe that list MPs should be based in Wellington where they can then perform their function of furthering the cause of their party via caucus and parliament. (That’s after all where cabinet ministers reside.) Instead they choose a nice place to live and/or where they have a prospect of ousting the sitting MP in the next election. There’s a saving here too because the long suffering taxpayer wouldn’t have to fund an ‘electorate’ office.
If I have the chance I will be vigorously representing that view if there is any enquiry.
Cheers
Ewan Mac